Software for Road Race and
Cross Country Meet Management

Apple Raceberry JaM is a complete race management system. It allows you to enter names, teams and addresses before the event, set up and score the race as you wish, compile final results within minutes after the last runner arrives, and post your results on the Internet afterwards. The road race package also functions as a data base management system, facilitating mailings to the runners. It is a modular system, consisting of several programs/applications that are linked with a menu program.

For examples of the services you can perform with ARJ software, see our home page, which contains links to examples of the events we service. ARJ also sells software for track meets.

Separate but (nearly) equal versions are available for the Macintosh and Windows operating systems. The display above is the screen for the Windows version of the menu program that allows you to switch from one operation to another, the one below is for the Macintosh.

Besides the usual pop-up menus and dialogs typical of those systems, their user-friendly features are enhanced by the use of on-screen buttons with detailed descriptions of their functions to guide you through the usual procedures.

Opening Up the Files

A program called OpenFiles is then used to create meet files big enough for your purposes, in the process choosing as to whether or not you track the entrants' age/year in school, sex, home towns and/or addresses, and teams, if any.

Road Race Award Groups

Apple Raceberry JaM is very flexible as to award groups. You can enter up to eighteen age groups for men and women each, with age breaks of your choice, and create additional award groups (one for each age/sex group) which may involve some additional criterion (professional vs. novice, local vs. visitor, etc) or not be based on age at all (wheelchair disability category, relay category). Teams can be scored in groups, too, simply by appending a two-character classification to the team name ("OM" for Open Men, "MX" for Mixed, etc.).

Program SetData is used to enter data on the runners one entrant at a time (unless you can get the race management or a sponsor to do it for you; program DownLoad can import data from text files whether delimited or in fixed-field-length form). The process is speeded considerably by several features built into ARJ:

• You can input the data all in caps; the results will be output in initial-cap form for you (you can also prepare a pre-race program in initial-cap form by outputting the data to a file and then using a word processor for fina formatting).

• The data-entry program attempts to fill in city (and team) names for you, based on the first few characters you input and whatever towns have already been put into the city-names file. If you have already entered runners from Minneapolis and Minnetonka, for example, and another comes in from the latter, typing "M" in the "City and state" box on the entry form may bring up "MINNEAPOLIS, MN". Continue typing; the second letter, "I", wipes out all characters but the "M" and brings up "MINNETONKA, MN". If the runner were instead the first one from Minnesota City, you'd just have to finish off typing the name.

• The program remembers the zip codes entered for each city, and pops the last one used into the "Zip Code" box with all but the first three characters selected, since a sufficiently large city will have more than one zip-code area within its limits, but the first three digits are usually the same. If you do have to change the third digit, just backspace.

• It often happens that a family contributes two or more entrants. If the last name of an entrant is the same as the one you last entered, type a hyphen (Mac) or caret (Windows) in the first space of the "Name" box and that surname will be recalled.

• If the street address same as last entrant of an entrant is the same as the last one you entered, type a hyphen or caret in the first space of the "Street" box and that address will be recalled, including the city and zip code.

• If, as often happens on race day (and also when the entries are opened somewhere else and then delivered to you), two entrants have the same last name and address but their entries do not come to you one after the other, type a "?" in the address box. The program will search for entrants with the same last name as the one on the screen and pop up their addresses.

For the typical inter-team cross-country meet, you get the entries by team. By accepting the suggestion to enter them "By team" you will have to input the team name only once for each roster.

When all the entries are in, you can proofread them on screen in batches, in the order you entered them.

If you have a bar code reader, you can print out bar codes on adhesive-backed labels (three up on a laser printer) with the runner's name, age, sex, and home town or team on them.

For a road race, you can reassign ID numbers in alphabetical order for convenience in packet pickup. For a cross country meet, you can reassign them alphabetically by team (but only if you have the "road race" package). Other options are available, including printing labels in zip-code order.

Scoring the Race

Once the runners' data are in the computer (including those on race-day entrants), you score the race by entering the finishers' ID numbers in order of finish (here's where a bar-code reader comes in handy) and the times, also in order of finish. Program RaceDay can download times and select times from such timers as the Chronomix, TimeMachine, and TimeTech (Sprint) either during or after the race. Select times can be used to correct errors in the timing and also in the collection of the finish order (including spindles used out of order).

When you are satisfied with your entry of the finishers' ID numbers and times it's time to output results. RaceDay is very flexible as to the format of your results. The defaults shown above are appropriate for a cross country meet.

RaceDay's scoring options make printing results for awards presentation a one- or two-mouse-click operation for most cases. Formatting is very flexible, as is team scoring. Check out the demo disk to explore these options in full. For cross country, the unique packing analysis may be of special interest, as well as the reporting of both the average time of the scorers and the spread from first to last.

Limitations

• 30,000 entrants (6,000 if you need to reassign ID numbers alphabetically)
• 255 teams

System Requirements

Pricing

Basic Road Race Package

Designed for road races, this package does everything listed above (and then some!) for $200.

Cross Country Package

If you want to score interscholastic/intercollegiate meets, and can get by without alphabetical and zip-code sorts, this $125 package can save you money. It still prints out bar-coded labels for you. If you want the interscholastic/intercollegiate track package as well, you can have both for $200.

Extensions

Expansion modules are available for $25 each that allow the road race manager to

• Score races with wave starts, produce WAVA age-graded results, record splits for triathlons and relays (up to ten legs) and score series of up to ten races

• Accumulate a data base from each race you score, eliminating duplicates and updating addresses (you can look up a runner's address in future races by entering his/her name, and of course use the data base for mailings)

• Use a Chatsworth data card reader to handle huge numbers of race day entrants.